Time And Relative Mischief in Space
by Taranea
Summary: Rose was lost, Martha left, Astrid even died. It's a lonely Doctor that wonders what exactly just went BONK! against his TARDIS, and when he finds out that his visitor claims to be Loki, the God of Mischief, well... Curious, the Doctor offers him a ride. Unfortunately, Loki decides he wants to go the roots of Yggdrasil. And things...don't go exactly as planned.
1. Catch Him If You Can

**Hi THERE **and welcome to this fic! This is technically a crossover of both _Thor_ and _Doctor Who_, but really, it's more of a story about Loki and the Doctor, i.e., two mad men in a box.

Or rather, _without_ a box, as it will soon become apparent, when it will also turn into quite a problem.

But yeah, anyway, happy to have you here along for the ride. For Loki, this li'l madcap ride kicks off right after the first _Thor_ movie, and for the Doctor right after _Voyage of the Damned_. I wanted to put this in the crossover section, but fanficnet was a bit on the..._uncooperative_ side today, so I'll have to fix that when I'm online again. Until then, enjoy!

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**Time and Relative Mischief in Space**

_by Taranea_

**Chapter 1:** **Catch Him If You Can**

_"No, Loki." _

Loki was still falling. Had been falling. Would be falling forever.

And he didn't even care.

_"No, Loki._"

Odin hadn't roared the words. He had spoken so quietly. And just like that, so softly, so irreparably, Loki's last, desperate appeal had been crushed.

There was no hope for him now, no chance to ever repair what he had done.

And, realizing that, he had finally let go.

_Falling..._

It hadn't even felt like falling, at first - it had felt like weightless drifting, like lightly floating, and only Thor's anguished face, his uselessly outstretched hand and the shattered edge of the Bifrost receding into the vast distance gave him any real feeling of motion. It was surprisingly gentle, or would have been, if his heart weren't in such turmoil.

And then the tendrils of the universe had wrapped around him and oh, Loki _fell_.

The void was tearing at him, fierce winds howling in absolute, surreal silence, enough to drive anyone mad who wasn't already. He was cold, oh so cold, his blood perhaps already frozen, and he thought it was bitter irony that his very nature as a Jotun that had caused him to lose everything was perhaps the one thing now that prevented him from losing his life, too.

Was this to be his punishment, then? Falling, plummeting, rushing downwards in endless space forever, through the empty and senseless void until his mind would simply give up and _break_?

Fitting. _Let him who is nothing rejoin the nothing in its most pure and absolute form_, an icy voice in his head supplied.

Nothing.

Nothing forever...

_...wait._

Loki's shut eyes had blinked open again. Had there just been a noise?

A..._strange_ noise...

Loki's face creased into the tiniest frown, his lips trying to recreate the sound he had just heard...

"Vworp Vworp?"

And that was as far as he came, because _then_ his own remaining breath was suddenly knocked out of his lungs as his back collided with something _hard._ And whatever it was, it then seemed to break underneath him, because he could feel it give and then himself tumble through it, into it, and the next thing he knew _everything_ around him had just exploded into existence.

Colours and sound were suddenly there again, assaulting his numbed senses after the void like a kaleidoscope gone mad, but his lungs immediately seemed to realize there was now _air_ and sucked it in greedily with a gasp. Loki still had no idea where he was, flailing wildly as his movement seemed to just have become suddenly a _lot _more painful as he was knocked against something and then fell through something else, and just when his brain had registered that in between the air and the pain and the things surrounding him, that yes, he was undeniably _alive, _before he could actually do something about it there was a _splash!_

...and Loki Odinsson, Trickster, Liesmith, God of Mischief and the Prince of Asgard had landed head-first in a swimming pool.

xxx

The Doctor, on the other hand, had ben having a boring day. It had been a while since Martha had left and even though he was already beginning to wish there was somebody around to talk to and be clever at, he hadn't yet really found it in himself to go and find somebody to travel with. Thinking of Astrid also always sharply reminded him that his companions did not always meet with the kindest fates, which...left him a bit reluctant to take anybody in at the moment.

But without company, the TARDIS was...empty.

And, even if you could go anywhere and to any place in the universe, sometimes, the Doctor thought, a day could still be simply..._boring_.

Fortunately, it took a turn for the interesting after approximately five seconds when a man (or at least, a man-shaped being – this was the TARDIS and one could never be sure) crashed through his space ship's doors.

The Doctor's eyes grew wide. "What!"

Before he could do anything, his involuntary visitor had whirled through the control room in a tangle of limbs, wide eyes and an utter disrespect for gravity, and then proceeded to bounce off the console in a way that would have looked rather comical if it hadn't probably also been rather painful.

The Doctor stumbled backwards. "What?!"

Next, the TARDIS apparently decided to be helpful, because she abruptly shook like a rodeo bull and as a result the alien then crashed straight through the _other_ door, until a loud splashing noise indicated where precisely his journey had ended.

Not even bothering with a third customary 'What!' the Doctor had already taken off running.

xxx

Loki gasped, and struggled, and would have screamed if water hadn't rushed into his mouth the moment he tried.

_If this is the afterlife, it is missing a certain amount of dignity_, shot through Loki's head, and for a moment he wondered whether he should transform into a salmon (or maybe simply let himself drown, an option that seemed increasingly more attractive by the minute), but then his head already broke the surface, and, indeed, his feet came to stand on solid ground.

He then noticed that the water was approximately four feet deep and came up to a point slightly higher than his navel.

_Right. So drowning here would have looked potentially rather silly._

Well. Not that standing like a drenched poodle in full battle armour in what was apparently some sort of extravagant bathtub had ever had the potential for a lot of _gravitas_ in the first place.

Loki looked around, blinking water out of his eyes and absent-mindedly picking his helmet out of the water before it could sink.

Where was this? A bath of some sort? Was this a joke by the universe?

The room he found himself in was wide and circular, the floor, ceiling and walls seeming to be covered in the same golden-hued tiles. The hexagon-shaped bath he was standing in measured perhaps sixty feet across, the water looking deeper at the other end. The entire architecture certainly looked different than anything Loki had ever seen on any realm.

_...well, I don't think there's any realm with such a lack of style, anyway,_ Loki thought. _Hel, where am I? __  
_

His eyes fell upon a ladder at the side of the bath and, after a few shaky attempts, he even managed to marshal his bruised, tired and cramping body into obedience to take a few swaying steps toward it and climb out of the pool. Up here he could see the door he had to have come flying through and wondered whether he should try and hide somewhere until he knew where he was or wait a bit to see whether he could get some of his strength back first. Next, however, that decision was already taken from his hands, as then running footsteps were starting to be heard and they seemed to be headed right for him. Loki instinctively tensed and felt himself shifting into a more battle-ready stance, internally cursing himself that he had let go of his spear now. He felt too weak to trust in his magic and that meant he was reduced to the few throwing daggers concealed beneath his clothing.

But then again, now that he was listening more closely, the footsteps only sounded like one pair of legs and those not even like heavy boots or armoured footwear, rather more...

"Oy! Who are you and how did you get in here?"

Loki stared. The...man who had just burst through the door did not look like a soldier or a guard.

But he also hadn't expected someone who looked like an accountant in a tizzy.

Before Loki could say anything, the new arrival had already stopped himself a few feet from the other, and then for some reason donned a pair of glasses and waved a..._rather pitiful wand_? a voice in Loki's head supplied.

He instinctively stepped backwards, wanting to bring a spell up in defence, but then also realized that the thing glowing a light blue at him was not magical in nature, but it did seem to tell the other something, because his eyes immediately widened even more, and his face split into a (from Loki's perspective) rather worrying grin.

"_A frost giant!_" he exclaimed.

"...excuse me?" Loki croaked, mostly because he a) was currently reeling, since he had never expected anyone to see through his disguise and b) had never expected anyone to react to this realization with quite that much enthusiasm.

"That's what you are, a genuine frost giant!" The other was carrying on, seemingly completely ignoring Loki but still grinning like a lunatic, "Coldest creatures in the universe, you lot are, not particularly known for your warm welcomes, either, but biggest ice palaces this side of the Medusa Cascade. Oh, you're _beautiful_..." but then he he trailed off and his grin started to actually transform into a frown. "...though you don't actually _look_ like a frost giant. Why don't you look like a frost giant?" He cocked his head and sniffed. "You're supposed to be blue," he added helpfully. His tone actually wasn't unlike a school teacher's in art class who was asking Loki why he hadn't gotten the colour right in a painting of a giraffe.

Loki stared. For all he knew, he was in a strange place he did not recognize, his magic was not functioning properly, everything hurt, he was soaking wet, and the presumed ruler of his unknown surroundings seemed to be stark raving mad.

And he was also someone who knew too much. Loki didn't know whether this man had any ties to Asgard or Jotunheim, didn't know why he was so pleased to have found him and didn't know what he planned to do with that knowledge _or_ him. But then, the other seemed to sense his unease, because the scrutinizing expression dropped away with some of the manic energy, both to be replaced with a more relaxed expression and a friendly smile.

"Oh. Sorry. I think I'm being rude. You're completely soaked and I haven't offered you a towel, even. And I of all people should know one can't always choose their appearance, I suppose," he said, the last as a muttered aside, before he offered his guest an apologetic shrug. "Always wanted to be ginger, myself, you know?"

Again, Loki blinked, a bit more slowly this time, the drenched god appearing as if hoping that things would make sense again when he opened his eyes once more. They didn't.

"But yeah, anyway, I'm the Doctor, we're in my...home, I suppose, so I should probably offer you a cup of tea. You're not going to melt, are you? Sorry, bit of a badly timed joke. Bad habit," he grimaced, before perking up again, "But you might want a change of clothes, can't imagine anyone wants to stand around being soaked. And what you're wearing doesn't look very comfortable. Especially that helmet," the man who had called himself the Doctor gave the headwear Loki was still clutching by one of its horn a quizzical look.

"Don't you bonk it in door frames a lot?"

"...no," Loki managed his first active contribution to the bizarre conversation. If all of this had turned out to be one single, insane prank at this point he would not have been surprised, if only for the fact that he couldn't think of anyone beside himself who would actually be able to come up with such a ridiculous scenario.

"Right," the other said, as if he hadn't even heard the reply, and cocked his head. "But yeah, your get-up all seems rather..." - his mouth twisted a bit, as if something tasted bad - "..._martial_. Who are you?"

Loki took a breath. "Loki," he began, then paused for barely a second, before he caught himself again. "...I am Loki."

"Loki?" A spark of recognition seemed to flash through the eyes of the man calling himself the Doctor, and his eye brows rose a little. "Loki as in, Loki the god?"

The prince of Asgard drew himself up instinctively, feeling some semblance of poise returning and taking to it like Hannibal Lector to an Overeaters Anonymous convention. "The very same."

The Doctor grinned brightly. "The one who gave birth to a horse, right?"

The temperature in the pool room seemed to immediately drop just a few degrees.

xxx

"Hey, nothing wrong with horses, honest," the Doctor added quickly, trying to defuse the situation as glibly as he could, "I, uh, almost married one. Once." He rubbed his chin. "But yeah, not one of my better ideas..."

"Are you from Midgard?" Loki interrupted him, now seeming more irritated than angry, which was a start, the Doctor supposed.

"Midgard...?" The Doctor blinked for a moment, before realizing what the other meant, "...oh. Oh, I see. No. I'm from...somewhere else entirely. I visit that place a lot, though. That where I could take you?" _Meant to visit that place_ _anyway,_ the Doctor thought, _ that strange weight loss company basically reeks of someone tampering with that planet again... _

"…"

The Doctor interrupted his train of thought when he realized his guest hadn't replied. Instead, the dark-haired man who had just claimed to be Loki, the God of Mischief, just seemed to be tired and wet and slightly lost for a moment, before he noticed the Doctor's gaze on him and immediately it was as if a mask slid over his features again, obscuring any trace of emotion the Doctor thought he had just glimpsed.

_Well. If that isn't not suspicious at all. _

In fact, the Doctor had felt slightly uneasy around Loki from the start, but without being able to pinpoint exactly why. The armour, the guarded expression, the concealed knives he had been able to spot, even the, well, honestly slightly silly helmet, all suggested that this was an individual who had scarce reason to trust others and probably rarely found himself in peaceful circumstances.

But because he was the Doctor, he still saw all this and said,

"...or how about a cup of tea and that towel first?"

_To be continued..._

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Right then! Hope you liked, and if you read, please review! :D (Or just visit my profile for more DW crossover nonsense ;) )


	2. Tea With A Trickster

**Chapter 2: Tea With A Trickster**

Loki was towelling his head dry, and dearly wished that things would maybe somehow look better when his hair did.

He supposed he shouldn't be surprised when they didn't.

Loki dropped the towel with a sigh onto the bed and looked around. His host calling himself the Doctor had led him out of the pool room into a corridor with several hexagonal – Loki sensed a theme here – doors leading off at its sides.

"There's a guest room here...I think – yeah, that's where she put it today. You can dry off and get changed, I'll put the kettle on."

With that slightly mystifying comment he had stopped next to a door that slid open and revealed a small, but tidy room with a bed and wardrobe inside.

"For clothes, have a look inside the closet. She'll probably know what you need," the Doctor had said, and with that last strange remark had left Loki on his own, "Find me in the kitchen when you're done. Or, well, probably let the kitchen find you."

The Asgardian wondered a bit whether he had maybe died after all and maybe gone to a place that was solely meant for deceased people who had been slightly mad.

The door had closed behind him, but opened again when he stepped close to it, so he really did seem to be a guest rather than a prisoner. The room also looked elegant, furnished with a table, a nightstead, a...bunkbed for some reason, and a carpet and a sink, all tasteful and in warm colours, if slightly alien in design. He wondered if this was a palace, then, and for a moment there were were memories again, and with them the guilt, fear, grief, shameanger_loss-! _

...and Loki had to consciously breathe and calm down again before everything connected with memories of his former home could run together into one insurmountable wave that threatened to drown him.

_No. Focus. Things at hand that can be done first. _

'She will know what you need', the Doctor had said. She? Loki had looked around, expecting perhaps to see a maid of some sort, which would cement his host's status as some kind of ruler further, but couldn't see anyone. Frowning, he stepped over to the wardrobe and opened it, and then couldn't decide whether to be alarmed or pleased, because most of the clothes inside eerily looked a lot like what he would have chosen for himself, if he could.

Well.

Perhaps apart from the thing in the corner that inexplicably appeared to be a carrot costume, but other than that...

The dominating colours in the wardrobe were green, gold, black and grey, and its contents featured both Midgardian suits as well as Asgardian robes and leathers – but interestingly enough nothing that even remotely resembled any kind of battle armour.

Loki reached inside, briefly hesitating between a sharp-cut suit and a pleasingly patterned robe.

His host, at least, had dressed like a Midgardian – _albeit a slightly strange one_, Loki amended in his mind. The prince of Asgard might not have paid _that_ much attention to fashion during his visit to Earth when he had been mostly busy trying to stomp Thor into its miserable dusty ground, but even he knew that if you were wearing a pinstripe suit, you wouldn't add...well, whatever his shoes were trying to be.

_In fact, I suppose even Thor would know that one. _

"Right." Loki's hands clenched briefly, before he grabbed the suit with rather more force than necessary and put the helmet firmly down on the table, not looking at it.

He had tried to magic himself some dry armour into existence, but the effort had only left him with a sharp headache. Now the bed seemed almost inviting, even if his strange host was expecting him in the kitchen...

_Yes, brilliant idea, Loki Liesmith. Go to sleep in the fortress of a potential madman, why don't you?_

Loki's face briefly screwed itself up into a grimace of distaste. Very well, then. He would have to deal with this in the manual way. With another sigh, he unbuckled the soaked armour, then hesitated briefly before slipping off the rest of his clothes and drying himself off as quickly as he could. Technically, there was little point to his hurrying – he was vulnerable here one way or another, but the other also hadn't yet done anything that Loki could construe as threatening, even if he tried. He hadn't been searched, he had been allowed to keep his knives, and neither a guard nor a servant had been sent as an obvious way to keep an eye on him. In fact, now that Loki thought about it, he hadn't even seen anyone else since they had come here. If this man was a ruler, where were his subjects? But if there _weren't_ any servants here who had prepared the room...?

_None of this has been magicked into existence. There isn't an enchanted or glamoured object in the entire chamber_, Loki thought as he brushed over the bed and the clothes and the furniture pieces, none of them registering to his senses as anything but utterly ordinary.

Well. This was intriguing at least. Something to busy himself with so he didn't have to think about...

Resolutely, Loki cut that train of thought off and instead started dressing himself in the dark grey suit he had selected to match the clothes of his host, again wondering where this Doctor could hail from. Even though he had denied it, his accent indicated that he was from the place Midgardians called England...

And.

Well.

Maybe the fact that he had been offered tea almost instantly had also been a clue.

But then again, for some reason some people on Earth had also insisted that _he_ sounded like he was a resident of this 'Britain' place as well, so maybe he shouldn't put that much stock in perceived accents.

Loki brushed his hair back and slung a tie around his neck, for some reason feeling as if this would be armour for an entirely different battle as he left the guest room in search for his mysterious host.

xxx

The mysterious host in question was currently not that mysterious, but rather staring at a scanner, frowning and, apparently a bit lost in thought, because he was chewing on one end of his screwdriver. (Which, to be honest, ruined that whole mystery-aura anyway).

"Hmmm..." the screw driver was removed as the Doctor pushed the screen aside and leaned back on the seat in front of the console. The TARDIS scans were in accordance with what he had found earlier. The alien he had picked up was definitely a frost giant, but readings of his travels indicated Asgard origin. And he had claimed to be Loki, the God of Mischief...

"...Doctor?"

"Yeah? Up here," The Time Lord raised his head as his guest had entered the console room, signalling him to step closer with a wave. "So, you showing up, that supposed to mean the world is ending, then? Will I have to start looking out for giant snakes or keep a generous supply of dog food ready?" he asked.

Green eyes stared at him, perhaps with a bit more of honest surprise than their owner had intended.

"...excuse me, _what_?" Loki asked after a moment.

xxx

"Says here you're supposed to be around at Ragnarok.," the Doctor said, slapping a thick book that lay on the strange contraption before him. "End of the world, _ba-da-boom_, the Twilight Of The Gods," he said, eye brows wiggling before he sat up abruptly from the – _were those __car seats__?- _ swinging his legs off the console and bouncing to his feet, perhaps just a bit too disturbingly cheerful for someone announcing the apocalypse.

In his hands he now held the large tome, a beautifully bound book as a part of Loki's mind registered, and for a brief moment the magician had the feeling the title was in a language he didn't know, all strange circles and dots, but the impression was gone in a flash, the embossed letters on the cover now only reading 'Fate of the Gods' in Asgardian script.

Loki felt rather sure that this book was written in anything but Asgardian.

But still, when the other held it out, he reached for the beautiful book instinctively, almost reverently, perhaps only imagining the...flash of approval? that seemed to show in his host's eyes at this reaction. He filed that information away for later out of habit, even if he as of yet had no idea what he was supposed to do with it. Ignoring it for now, Loki opened the book instead and scanned the pages, running his hand over the letters. His eye ridges rose when he caught his own name and those of Odin, Freya, Frigga, Thor and others. They were printed (painted?) in an elaborate, beautiful script and illustrated at some point with what looked like...woodcut pictures...

"They seem to have captured your hat rather well. Fancy that."

Loki glanced up from the page sharply, narrowed green eyes boring into entirely too innocent brown ones. For a brief, strange moment, he didn't even know whether to feel offended or to laugh. But there had been no malice or condescension in the other's tone and how long had it been since somebody had simply teased him without a mean streak in it...?

"So, about that business about the world ending...?" the Doctor prompted him when it became apparent Loki seemed to have hit some sort of mental roadblock, and the sorcerer had to force himself to focus again. He shook his head.

"Entirely fictional. There seem to be some naming similarities, yes, but apart from that it all seems to have been written by Midgardians with..." he gave a somewhat irritated wave, "...slightly too much enthusiasm for the subject."

"Fiction written by fans, huh?" the Doctor asked, and for some reason Loki briefly felt like a joke had just soared over his head.

xxx

"If that's how you want to put it, yes."

"Okay, then." The Time Lord shrugged. "No world-saving today. It was getting rather dull, to be honest."

In truth, the Doctor could probably have figured the answer to that question. He had been suspecting that there was some sort of connection between the actual planet Asgard and the Earth myths about Norse gods, but had doubted they contained much more factual information apart from the fact that they existed and had visited Earth once – especially since they read exactly as they would if you had a bunch of armour-clad aliens show up in full battle mode above a horde of drunk vikings.

_And then proceed to smash the living daylights out of some ice giants, yeah_. _One of which is currently alive and on my ship. Which begs the question..._

"So how come you crashed into my TARDIS – that's where we are, by the way - mid-flight? Not many people manage that."

Loki briefly looked at him like he seemed to weigh two different options in his head, calculating, staring at the Doctor as if he was trying to figure something out.

"...I fell."

"You fell?" The Doctor cocked his head, and then decided to take a chance. "Off the Bifrost?"

"Yes," Loki replied, and then curiously almost looked panicky as if that word had escaped before he had been able to stop it.

"Ouch," the Doctor commented with a sympathetic wince. "Blimey, I always said they should put some handrails on that thing. Honestly, big, psychedelic rainbow bridge over an endless chasm is just asking for trouble, I mean, just look at Mario Kart – oy, you alright?"

xxx

"...I have been better," Loki replied honestly, also feeling like he was starting to develop a headache now. He still wasn't sure how this man could know an uncanny amount about his world, but at the same time talk so much utter _nonsense_.

"Oh. Yeah. Sorry. I think I offered you a cup of tea, didn't I? Let's go to the kitchen," the Doctor said, at the same time taking the thick book again and starting to head down the stairs. For want of anything better to do, and because the promise of a soothing drink was actually starting to sound more appealing by the minute, Loki followed him.

"So...you're a doctor?" he asked. "A doctor of what? Medicine?"

The other threw him a grin over his shoulder.

"Just the Doctor. I'm a doctor of everything."

Loki frowned. In his limited experience, doctorates didn't work that way, but perhaps they did on whatever world his host hailed from.

"There you go," the other said as he handed him a steaming mug when as they reached what probably qualified as a kitchen but which was, again, devoid of anyone but them. "It's English Breakfast tea." He took a sip from a second mug himself and then drew a grimace. "Well. English Breakfast tea like they tried to reproduce it centuries later on planet Sto, where they sadly got their historical sources a bit mixed up and as a result this tastes like liquid beans on toast. With porridge. Sorry."

"It's..._interesting_." Loki, who had always been the most diplomatic of his family, tried very carefully to keep his voice even.

"Is it," the Doctor says neutrally, but his brown eyes flashed with warm amusement as he met Loki's over his own mug of hot terribleness. For a moment, Loki was tempted to snort or smile back, but kept himself in check – nobody had even so much as joked about something as trivial as terrible food with him for a while now, it...wasn't something people liked to do with him, and expecting it from a stranger couldn't possibly end well. Loki gripped the mug with a little more force than necessary and took another swallow, because if the liquid only scalded his throat badly enough, the tight feeling there would probably go away.

The Doctor seemed to sense the change in Loki's mood, because he took another breath and then motioned for them both to sit at the table, perhaps in another attempt to make them more comfortable.

"Well. Culinary highs and lows of the cosmos aside, anywhere in particular you'd want me to drop you off?" he asked. "My ship can go anywhere, so if you'd like to go back home to Asgard or..." his eyes briefly trailed over the exposed skin of Loki's hands, before the Doctor met his gaze again, his expression careful, questioning, "...Jotunheim...?"

Loki could feel himself stiffen, and had to briefly fight the urge to hide his bare hands, avert his face, because that would have given too much away. "No," he said instead, forcing his voice not to sound too hoarse. "Not there."

"Not going home again?" The Doctor raised his eye brows.

"I'm like you, Doctor," Loki replied, coolly. "I don't have a home."

It had been a gamble. But he was Loki, and he always won.

For once, the Doctor's face briefly stilled, brown eyes hardening, a miniature slip in that cheerful mask of the other.

"...I see," the Doctor finally said, quietly, before he seemed to swallow and try to return to normal, but a bit of the friendliness seemed to have gone from his expression and tone now. Loki felt a small sting when he realized this, and _then_ felt like kicking himself because this – the alien's feeling's, his own feelings about him liking him or not - shouldn't _matter_.

"Anywhere else you'd like to go, then?" the Doctor asked, tone casual on the surface, but guarded underneath.

_Yes, _Loki thought, b_ack in time to fix things, _he would have liked to say, but didn't. It was a silly idea and for children. His family – _the people who pretended to be your family_ – would not want to see him again and that was the way it would stay.

xxx

"I...hadn't thought about it," Loki said after a few moments had passed and it sounded like a confession. "I think Midgard – or Earth to you, I suppose – would be suitable."

"Earth, huh?" the Doctor repeated the word, but sounded less than enthused about the idea than he had earlier. Mostly because of that fact that being one himself, the Time Lord thought he knew what a trouble magnet looked like, and if his instincts were right, and you imagined trouble as lightning, then Loki was the equivalent of a wet man with a copper rod standing atop a hill in a thunderstorm, holding up a sign saying 'ALL GODS ARE BASTARDS'.

_And that's taking into account that he says he's one of them himself, _a voice added in the Doctor's head with a humourless snort.

_No. It's bad enough that you bring your own monsters with you every time you visit, going to Earth and unleashing a self-proclaimed alien trickster god that has clearly just been in a fight with Rassilon knows what and barely made it out alive would be pushing it, even for you. _Loki was clever, the Doctor could see that. Clever, and brilliant, and scared and hurt and obviously angry, and wasn't _that _a promising combination...

"Okay, and are there any _other _places you'd like to go?" the Doctor asked carefully.

Loki raised an eye brow. "You offered to take me to Midgard earlier," he said, and it almost sounded like a slight accusation.

"I changed my mind," the Doctor replied, flippantly and now there was a definite flash of annoyance in the eyes of the other, much more badly masked than the others had been. For some reason, the Time Lord was getting the vibe that Loki wasn't really used to getting that answer.

"I see," the Asgardian replied, stiffly setting the tea down and not touching it anymore. His tone was definitely cold and distant now, void of the earlier emotion that had started to appear. "Would you consent to drop me anywhere else then, or am I to understand I am your prisoner?"

There was a pause. The Doctor looked at him, also trying to keep his face as neutral as possible as he wondered how to phrase what he would say next to not make this any worse. Even dressed in a finely cut suit, his movements and phrasings so obviously educated and refined...any time his affable demeanour slipped, there was _something_ about him that suggested what you were really looking at was a wounded and cornered animal, ready to either bolt or attack. The frost giant's eyes were burning with a fierce, raw intelligence, but also just a touch of madness if you looked deep enough. His entire body language was also wary and guarded, as if their owner hadn't come to expect kindness from anyone in a while now...

...and the Doctor all at once felt like he had been punched in the stomach, because _now_ he couldn't help but be reminded of a _different_ face he once knew, that had been just as intelligent and mad and desperate, and that he had failed so badly he still hadn't been able to forgive himself.

_You mean, you're just gonna...KEEP me?! _

"...no." The Doctor let his face consciously relax again a bit, though he noted that Loki's stance did not become less stiff, or his expression any warmer – _Rassilon, what happened to him to make him this __suspicious__?_ - "No, I'm not planning to..._keep_ you if you want to leave," the Doctor said, watching the Asgardian, before he carefully picked his next words.

"But if you have nothing better to do at the moment...why not stay for a while?"

_That_ provoked a reaction. For a moment, Loki even looked younger again, which seemed to happen when something had surprised him.

"Stay?" he asked. "In your palace?"

There was a noise that sounded like a mechanical choke and the Doctor suddenly laughed.

"..._palace_?!" he repeated. "Oh, it's a long time since she's been called _that_, the old girl, but good going." He winked. "I think she definitely likes you now."

When Loki of course only looked more confused at this answer, the Time Lord relented a bit and smiled.

"No, this isn't my palace," he said. "Sorry, guess I should have cleared that up earlier. Come on," he said, rising from the table and striding back into the room with the column in the middle and the tables containing switches and what looked like the contents of a Midgardian junkyard sale arranged in a circle around it. The Doctor strode up to it and started flicking a few of them, looking back at Loki as he continued talking. "Way I see it, palaces are for rulers and I don't do..." he trailed off and gave a small, unwilling handwave "...that sort of thing. No. This is my ship," he said, letting the 'p' sound plop at the end of the sentence. "My space ship. She's called the TARDIS. Can materialize anywhere and materialize anything, including, but not limited to, terrible breakfast tea and snazzy suits." He grinned. "And she can go wherever you like...except I'd appreciate it if you wanted to go anywhere that isn't Earth. That planet already gets more alien interference than it should," he added with a bit of a lopsided smile while he hoped that Loki would accept that explanation for why he was reluctant to take him to his first choice of port.

xxx

Loki pursed his lips. The gears in his mind were already whirling, presenting him with several possible scenarios and plans of action. Truthfully, landing on Midgard would have had its advantages – he _could _travel between worlds without using the Bifrost, yes, but if he used those secret paths he knew, he was still limited to the nine main worlds – Hel, Niflheim, Svartalfheim, Muspellsheim, Jotunheim, Midgard, Vanaheim, Alfheim, and of course, Asgard - connected to each other by the branches of Yggdrasil and if he _wasn't_ on any of those, he was stuck. On the other hand, the _downside_ of landing on any of those worlds (save Midgard) was that they were either all populated by people wanting him dead, or people under Asgard's authority, in which case, see first point.

If he _really _wanted to go to Midgard, he supposed, he could still try to incapacitate or kill the Doctor, and then try and figure out how to fly this strange contraption that he called his ship, but...for some reason that plan didn't seem as appealing as it should.

_He offered to take you along for a while. Why don't you gain his trust and see where that goes? _a voice in his head supplied and Loki seized upon that idea eagerly, especially as he was glad that it meant he didn't have to think upon that strange flash of reluctance he had felt when pondering to harm his host or steal his ship.

Loki turned his gaze on the Doctor again. "Your ship can go wherever, you say?"

For some reason, the Doctor now looked as if he was really regretting his earlier words.

"Well..._technically _yes, but..."

"Then I want to go to the roots of Yggdrasil."

And a part of Loki was really enjoying the bit where the Doctor now looked positively seasick.

"You...you really want to go...?"

Loki gave a dismissive wave. "I'd like you to know I'm not planning to _do_ anything there. I'm just..." he hesitated, for what he estimated to be just the right amount of time to sound genuine, "...curious. To see if it can be done."

The Doctor didn't reply immediately, just looked at him, silently – and for a moment Loki had the extremely uncomfortable sensation that the man had just read his thoughts _and what if that is true, you don't even know what species he is_, flashed through his mind, because suddenly he also noticed that even if the Doctor looked like a human in his thirties, those eyes of his looked _old,_ and for another moment Loki wondered whether by falling from the Bifrost and crashing into the spaceship of a madman, he had just come across the first person in the universe who just might be able to match him.

And _now_ Loki could feel a small tendril of panic creeping up inside him, because if the Doctor would realize what kind of monster he had let into his ship, before Loki had been able to figure out what had happened to his magic, before he had a proper weapon, before he would be able to _defend_ himself-

And then that entire train of thought was once again cut short abruptly as from one second to the next the Doctor was now flashing him a wide grin and called. "Alright then! To the roots of Yggdrasil the World Tree it is – _Allôns-y_!"

And before Loki could say anything else, the Doctor had pulled down a lever, and the god of mischief was flung through the room with the pillar for the second time this day, only idly wondering whether it wouldn't have been better if he'd just continued falling through the damn void.

_To be continued..._


	3. A Cold Welcome

**Chapter Three: A Cold Welcome**

The inside of the TARDIS was currently feeling as if the space ship was a barrel, and the Doctor had decided to push them down the Niagara falls.

"_What the Nine is happening?!"_

"Sorry!" The Doctor called over, holding onto the controls with the ease of a seasoned TARDIS flyer, while Loki was hanging off one of the coral support beams and looked like someone trying to stay on his feet while balancing on a greased rodeo bull.

"Not the easiest place to hit, the roots of Yggdrasil!", the Doctor shouted in an apologetic tone. The fact that he then proceeded to start hitting the controls of his space ship with a _hammer_ didn't help Loki's confidence any.

But of course, Loki also knew that the Doctor was right about the roots of the World Tree not the easiest place to get to...mostly because they weren't a real place at all.

Loki had thought about trying to visit there before, simply as an exercise in magic (he knew it was possible, because the Allfather had done it) but had not yet made concrete plans to do so. But what he had understood already was that Yggdrasil's roots didn't "exist" in the same, physical way that the other nine realms did. Oh, they were real enough, the source of all energy and matter in that corner of the universe that was Asgard and all its surrounding worlds, but they were more of a...state, a single point in an imagined system of coordinates of quantum and magic, and to get there was not about _going_ somewhere, but rather...bringing yourself into alignment with the way Yggdrasil had woven herself into the world, and then turning toward the source of where she grew.

Loki had once tried to explain the process to Thor, but had only been rewarded with a stare that suggested Thor thought his younger brother _really_ needed to find a maiden, and that had been the end of Loki ever speaking of that topic again.

But the fact remained that Yggdrasil was not so much a place, but rather the _idea _of one - a visual metaphor, something your brain would show you instead of what was really there when you had slipped between the folds of the universe and managed to behold her, because no sense of a living being had ever been made to perceive the raw magic, power and firmament that was the World Tree.

Of course, in that same way, even the word 'tree' was only another metaphor, but it was a way of thinking about it that worked, so Loki didn't mind using the expression. He also expected that when he got there his mind _would_ actually show him something like an impossible, towering, mad kind of tree with branches twisting like snakes trying to reach a sky infinitely removed.

He also expected his brain to insist there were the _other_ things from all the legends, ballads and nursery tales he had ever heard, like the squirrel Ratatosk whisking up the trunk vanishing in the distant crown, or, up above, the blind eagle Veorfollnir circling. In fact, seeing them should be inevitable, simply because of that habit all minds had, which was that when you _expected_ to see something, you usually did.

And then the TARDIS landed with a shuddering jolt that nearly threw Loki off his feet completely, and when he had managed to make his way out of the door, he also learned the lesson that most companions learn eventually, which was that when you're travelling with the Doctor, you hardly ever see what you expected at all.

xxx

"Theeeere we go! Good girl," the Doctor patted the console affectionately when the TARDIS had stilled once more. Truth be told, he hadn't been too sure about being able to land where Loki wanted to go – he as well knew that Yggdrasil was more an idea of a place than a physical spot, but he _also _knew that if there was anything that could potentially take them there, it would be his ship. He released the controls, straightened the jacket of his suit again and chanced a glance over at his visitor – currently, Loki seemed to be muttering something incomprehensible about this situation being 'worse than that time when the great oaf tried to leash a dozen harpies to his 'flying sled'' but he also appeared unhurt, so the Doctor only threw him a cheerful

"Well then! You coming?" and, grabbing his large brown coat, strode toward the door to throw it open.

The Doctor's first thought was that if this was an _idea _of a place, someone could do with warmer thoughts.

"Huh." the Time Lord said, looking around the area they had landed in. He also thought about calling back to Loki walking to the doors behind him that hey, he should feel right at home here, but hesitated. The young frost giant hadn't reacted positively during any of the other times his origins had been brought up, so the Doctor doubted he would now.

"Come on, come out, it's lovely," the Doctor said instead, stepping aside to let Loki emerge from the TARDIS. The dark-haired man frowned when his dress shoes sank into the snow almost immediately.

"What?" he asked, blinking. "No, this isn't right."

"Well, snow in the mountains does seem normal to _me_," the Doctor replied casually. And they were in the mountains. In fact, the Time Lord would have been hard-pressed to remember a place _more_ mountain-y.

The TARDIS had parked herself like a static impossibility on a steep snowy flank, her doors facing the peak. The Doctor had had to step carefully out of it to not tumble right back in. There was white, brilliant snow _everywhere_, glistening underneath a beautiful, sunny sky, the surrounding peaks of the Himalaya-like range they had landed in looking sharp enough to cut your eye if you looked at them too long. Somewhere far below, at the foot of the mountain, the Doctor thought he might have been able to detect rolling hills and valleys, but it was hard to tell because they, too, were covered entirely in white.

The Time Lord turned to Loki, who had taken some more steps outside the TARDIS, staring.

"Brilliant view, innit?" he suggested. "Also, since I forgot to say this earlier, I suppose I should tell you about one of the rules when travelling with me – don't wander off."

"What?" Loki repeated again, head whipping back toward him, confused and irritated. "Where is this? Where have you taken me?"

The Doctor pursed his lips. "Would you believe me the roots of Yggdrasil are a skiing resort this time of year?"

"_This isn't the roots of Yggdrasil_!" Loki snapped, stalking a few feet away and looking around with narrowed eyes. To his credit, he only paused when he beheld the TARDIS from the outside for a moment, but then his general anger seemed to win out again over surprise. His gaze narrowed back in on the Doctor. "This isn't anywhere even close to it. You _lied_ to me."

"You're the God of Mischief," the Doctor pointed out. "Doesn't lying to you count as some sort of worship?"

In fact, he wasn't even sure why he was starting to feel peevish now. Landing here had been an honest mistake, but there was something about Loki, the way he was so _prickly _all the time that it was hard not to let your hackles rise - even if, when he had accused the Doctor of lying he had almost seemed..._hurt_?

Right now the frost giant seemed ready to explode, though, so the Time Lord quickly continued, "Anyway, no, I didn't lie. Sometimes I just...don't land exactly where I intended. Look, the roots of an imaginary tree are not the easiest place to hit, okay?!" he defended himself when Loki didn't seem particularly convinced.

"I'm not sure where we are," the Doctor admitted, taking a few steps away and looking around. "I'd have to check the scanners again. This, um, isn't your home world, is it? Jotunheim?" he added with a side glance at the alien. Maybe the TARDIS had been trying to take him home...?

xxx

"No, it isn't_,"_ Loki ground out. He could feel the frustration boiling up inside him, not only because the other man was by far not grovelly enough when confronted with the anger of a god, but also because now even _ships _seemed out to defy him today. What had he ever done to deserve this?

_Well, I could think of a few things, _a treacherous voice in his head whispered and Loki crushed it. Instead, he waved an irritated hand at the Doctor.

"No, this isn't _Jotunheim_, you fool. To be more precise, this backwater ditch isn't anywhere in the realms of Asgard's jurisdiction, otherwise I'd know."

"Oy! not exactly polite, calling someone a fool, is it?" The Time Lord protested, shoving his hands onto his hips. "And I should know, because I do that a lot!"

Loki stared at him for a moment, as if he had no idea how to compute that latest nonsense, but then his gaze grew simply cold. "Forget it."

"You know, you could really try to be more friendly," the Doctor replied with a frown. "Hey! Are you even listening?" he was raising his voice now because Loki had started stalking away from the TARDIS, up the steep snowy slope the blue phone box was precariously parked on. "OY!" the Doctor hollered again when it seemed the frost giant had no intention of stopping, shouting now. "I _said _no wandering off, didn't I? Come on! What have I ever done to you?!"

Next, of course, Loki did halt.

But that was mostly because the Doctor's shouts had just caused the start of an avalanche above their heads.

"Well," the Time Lord said. "Besides _that_, obviously."

xxx

"_Open the doors_!" Loki was the one shouting now, his eyes wide and panicky as he was all at once sprinting back towards the Doctor and his damned blue box.

The Time Lord whirled around."Right!"

From a bird's eye point of view, the two tall, lanky figures in suits now stumbling and flailing through the snow field were a sight that could have easily been compared to a couple of panicking flamingoes, if the situation hadn't been so grave. As it was, the huge, thundering mass of snow crashing toward them would probably reach them in under a minute if they couldn't get out of its way. Loki, looking back at it while he was running, wasn't even sure whether his magic would obey him now if he stopped to try and teleport himself away, or whether being a frost giant would potentially let you survive being buried under hundreds of tons of picturesque winter scenery.

The Doctor arrived at the doors first, fumbling to get key out of his pocket, briefly looking back whether Loki was coming – and oh yes, he definitely was.

The only thing the Gallifreyan could shout was "Loki, _stop_-!" before the self-proclaimed trickster god had already barrelled into him full tilt, apparently a lot better at running than actually looking where he was going.

The Doctor collided with the TARDIS doors with a _thud!_ and an "Ooomph!" before he had a chance to attempt to open them. Loki had crashed into him hard enough to knock the breath out of them both – and _then_ the Doctor felt like both his hearts were about to skip a beat, because now that he was pressed against the blue box, which had stood at a very perilous angle on the steep ground to begin with, he could feel it...ever so slowly..._tilting_...

"Wha-NO!"

There was another W_omph! a_s the TARDIS abruptly keeled over, letting the two man-shaped aliens fall forwards into the snow. Behind the Doctor, Loki's head popped up, the green-eyed frost giant with the snow in his hair glaring at him like a pissed-off Christmas Elf.

"By the Allmother, are you _trying_ to aggravate me-?!"

"No time for that!" The Doctor shouted, already having jumped to his feet and roughly yanking at Loki's wrist for him to get up, "Run! We need to catch my ship!"

Loki blinked, because now he could also see the TARDIS sliding away, and steadily gaining speed along the incline. Behind them, the avalanche now sounded a _lot _closer.

...this was SO not his day.

xxx

"Hurry!" The Doctor was yelling the word, not even sure any more whether he meant it directed at Loki or himself. In front of them, the TARDIS was now almost as fast as they were running, and would soon be faster, the white icy death behind them now only seconds away.

"JUMP!" The Time Lord shouted, leaping at the same time as Loki did and they both landed on the front doors of the phone booth that were now its top side, the blue box gaining some more momentum as a result, now careening down the incline like the nerdiest bob sled ever.

"The doors, open the _doors_!" Loki was staring at the white wall of terror behind them, now almost upon them -

"I'm _trying_!" the Doctor shouted back, but the bumpy ride was making it almost impossible to insert the small key into the lock, and then the avalanche had almost reached them, and Loki yelled

"NO TIME!" and then the Asgardian threw up his hands, blasted the ground behind them with something that could have been magic but let the snow explode akin a jet engine flare, and as a result the TARDIS took off down the slope like a rocket ship.

xxx

Somewhere a long, long while away, Thor, the god of thunder, looked at the Allfather Odin. Both of them were standing in the observatory with Heimdall, the Watcher of the universe.

"Erm. Any...any idea of what he is seeing, father?" the younger of the gods sounded somewhat clueless, and varying between confused and worried.

"No." Odin shook his head as he regarded the golden-armoured god with a frown. "But he has been laughing like a man without sense for the last half an hour."

xxx

Back in a yet unnamed world, far away from Asgard, two men (well, man-shaped beings) were currently screaming, and sledding down a mountain on a phone box at near sonic speed, while behind them an avalanche was catching up.

It said something for both Loki and the Doctor that this might not even have made it into either of their Top Five Dangerous or Top Five Crazy situations.

But then again, you wouldn't have been able to tell that from their combined screaming.

"_AAAAAAAAAH!_"

"THIS IS_ ALL_ YOUR FAULT!"

"HOW IS _ANY_ OF THIS _MY_ FAULT?!"

Loki, lying flat on top of the phone box and clinging on for dear life, managed to turn his head fractionally to stare at the Doctor hanging on next to him.

"Your ship landed on this planet! Your shouting caused the avalanche! You're a bigger imbecile than my brother!"

"Because _you_ were running off! I was only trying to help! _You_ ran into _me_ and keeled over the TARDIS!"

"If you had _said_ something to warn me-!"

"Oh, really, like what, WATCH OUT!"

"Yes, something like that would have been acceptable," Loki conceded irritably, "I mean if-"

"No, no, no!" The Doctor grabbed his shoulder and pointed toward the front, "I mean we need to WATCH-!"

And then, by the laws of perfect timing, the TARDIS of course soared over a mountain cliff.

For a moment in flight, the Doctor looked at Loki.

"You're not very good at following orders, are you?"

xxx

Odin looked at Thor.

"What is this he is eating?"

"It is a...Midgard thing," the younger god responded numbly. "They call it popcorn."

xxx

Loki was...flying. Beneath them, the abyss was stretching out, the avalanche behind them now pouring into it. They were soaring across the chasm, the mountain behind them towering like a monolith, their flight path taking them clear over the fissure in its side and the sharp-edged stalactites at its bottom, their course headed straight for a plateau below...

The TARDIS narrowly landed on the other side of the chasm with a spectacularly powdery crash and a painful bounce, its two passengers being thrown off the box by the force of the impact. They landed in the snow with similar muffled exclamations, both rolling to a rather undignified stop. Then there was a moment of stunned silence with both Time Lord and frost giant raising their heads out of the snow and simply looking at each other, wide green eyes meeting equally baffled brown ones and then, maybe just because it was the aftermath of the adrenaline, or maybe it was because the Doctor's lips had twitched first...but suddenly Loki found he couldn't help but _laugh_.

This was all completely ridiculous, and in a way so familiar it hurt - like it had been centuries ago, him and...he...getting into trouble, days filled with madcap deeds and daring escapes, adventures on worlds he had smuggled them onto, past the Allfather's orders, just because they could -

Their laughter abruptly froze as beneath Loki and the TARDIS, the ground broke away into the fissure, both him and the phone box abruptly starting to tumble into oblivion.

And Loki for a moment could not have felt greater surprise as the Doctor didn't hesitate for a second before lunging after him instead of his ship.

The hand of the Gallifreyan closed securely around his wrist just as the ice beneath the frost giant tumbled into the abyss.

"Loki!" the Doctor called, brown eyes wide. "Hold on!"

"What do you _think_ I'm doing?!" the Asgardian snapped back before he could stop himself. Looking down, all he could see were sharp, icy spikes far, far below in an icy chasm. Somehow letting yourself fall dramatically into an interminable void had seemed a far more romantic option back then than getting impaled on very concrete ice pillars and rock shards not a hundred metres below now.

_He saved you without thinking twice about it_.

"Can you find purchase anywhere?" the Doctor called down. "I...don't think I can pull you up, you're...too heavy...!" the Time Lord's voice was strained. "See, this is why I always have female companions-"

Loki looked around himself. The wall he was hanging in front of was basically sheer ice, not offering foot- or handholds anywhere...and his magic, though obviously healthy, seemed now to have gone to sleep again, overtaxed by his earlier, panicky exertion. Which really only left him with one thing as an option...

Loki sighed. He brought his free hand up. He didn't even need to touch the ice before the wall was pierced by blue Jotun claws, his hand in its natural shape finding secure purchase on a surface that would have frozen human fingers and numbed even those of an Aesir.

"Right! Right, got you..." the Doctor managed between gritted teeth as with combined efforts they managed to hoist the Asgardian upwards again, Loki taking care to change his hand back as soon as he didn't need the hold any more.

"Okay, I'd like to preface this by saying I'm very sorry, but I'm really, really glad you decided not to fall," the Doctor managed, just as he pulled Loki over the edge. But the Asgardian had already paused as soon as he had solid ground underneath his hands and knees, and was now staring up.

That is, staring at the group of armed soldiers in thick winter coats that were now running toward them, weapons in their hands.

The Doctor looked at the frost giant with a guilty grimace.

"...mostly because I also _really _hate being taken prisoner when I'm on my own. Sorry."

_To be continued..._


End file.
